


Here is Your Paradise

by Tarlan



Category: Kung Fu: The Legend Continues
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-24
Updated: 2008-05-24
Packaged: 2017-10-20 18:05:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nickie realizes that a week in paradise would be hell without the right person beside him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here is Your Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ smallfandomfest #3: Prompt: Peter/Nickie, Dragon  
> Tag to _4x11 Chill Ride_

  
_Here is your paradise, here is your book of life,  
Where you and I will be forevermore.  
 **Here is Your Paradise** by Chris de Burgh_   


 

Five days and six nights at the Rainbow Inn on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii should have been the vacation of a lifetime. It had everything Nickie had wanted - hot women in tiny bikinis, sun, sea and sand - and yet, as he moved among the beautiful, sun-tanned bodies laid out on the beach, all he could think of was cold bodies lying on a slab in the morgue.

Every time his eyes dropped to one of the bronzed, half-naked sunbathers lying as still as death beneath the sun's hot rays, his brain would start to assess them: weight, height, build... probable cause of death. It was as if he could not put aside the fact that these were living, breathing human beings rather than victims laid out on the sand, waiting for him to begin his work. Then they would shock him by moving, some of them leaning up on one elbow to curse him for blocking out the sun with his shadow. It was unnerving, and all he wanted to do was go home, back to his small domain within the Coroner's office.

Nickie glanced at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, grimacing as he noticed how much his fair skin had burnt in the two days since his arrival despite the high factor sun block that he liberally rubbed onto every exposed inch of flesh. And the beard itched. Six weeks of growth and he was starting to hate it, no longer convinced that it made him look professional.

A knock at the door brought his head up and he frowned because he had yet to get around to ordering room service and the maid had already been that day. He stopped by the side of the door and called out cautiously, recalling Peter's warning to take care while he was here alone.

"Who is it?"

"Nickie? It's Peter."

Peter? He sucked in a breath in pleased realization and yanked open the door, grinning when he saw Peter standing on the other side looking awkward and pale with a single suitcase held in his hand.

"Peter! What are you...? What are you doing here?" He froze at Peter's frown, back pedaling quickly. "Not that I'm not glad to see you. It's just... I hadn't expected..."

Peter smiled. "Captain Simms told me I needed a vacation, preferably out of town. So I thought...maybe you'd like some company?" Peter tilted his head a fraction. "You gonna ask me in?"

"OH! Sure. Yes, come in."

He grinned again, the heavy weight of loneliness lifting from his shoulders as his friend stepped into his room and glanced around. It wasn't the best room in the hotel but it was the best he could afford, and it had a small balcony looking out over an azure blue ocean. Peter had walked to the French doors leading out onto the balcony but had paused on the threshold as if unwilling to take that final step outside. The soft net curtains fluttered in the small breeze wafting off the ocean, billowing around his tense form.

"What room are you in?" Nickie asked, his grin fading at Peter's cheeks pink slightly in embarrassment.

"Actually, I thought this was a twin and I was hoping you'd be willing to share."

"That's a great idea!" Nickie glanced around his small room, "Except it's a double not a twin...but it's a king size bed so we can still share. Plenty of room."

Peter's stiff frame seemed to relax, the tension flowing out of him. "I can take the floor. Won't be the first time in my life that I've slept on the floor."

Nickie knew Peter was referring to his childhood in the Shaolin temple with his father.

"Seriously, that bed is huge." He watched the conflict chasing across Peter's face as he stared at the enormous bed, the frown lines smoothing away. "You can have the..."

"I'll take the side by the door."

Nickie grinned because that was perfect. He preferred sleeping as far from the door as he could get, having always felt so vulnerable when alone in a strange place, probably because his career had involved seeing the victims of hotel crimes and burglaries gone wrong.

"Done!" Nickie rubbed his hands together. "So? You want to take a walk on the beach?"

Peter dropped his small suitcase on top of the bed and smiled back, the last of the tension draining from his body. He looked down at his slacks and t-shirt, still dressed more for the colder weather further north. "Just let me change into something more appropriate for the beach."

***

Heads turned as they walked down the beach side by side though Nickie knew they were checking out Peter, admiring his toned muscles and naturally bronzed skin - a gift from his Chinese heritage - but Nickie didn't mind. For the first time since he arrived in Hawaii, he felt comfortable in his own skin, the bodies laid out in lines on the beach no longer calling to him, as if Peter's very presence had breathed life into them. Nickie felt...happy.

He bumbled along beside Peter, talking of inconsequential moments they had shared in the past, and enjoying his friend's rich laughter. The people they passed smiled too, nodding their heads slightly in greeting where before they had scowled at him when he was alone. Peter pointed to an area just up ahead where several lounge chairs were given a little privacy behind heavy muslin curtains on the private stretch of beach belonging to the hotel. A smiling Hawaiian hotel employee gestured towards an empty cabanas containing two loungers and they sank down onto them, happily ordering beach cocktails.

"Why don't you take your shirt off, Nickie?"

"I'm a little pale...and I burn easy."

"Come on. I'll rub some of that lotion on your back and I'll make sure you cover up before you burn."

Nickie handed over the lotion with a grin, knowing he could trust Peter to keep his word.

****

At Peter's insistence they went out to eat that evening, going to a luau and sharing the dishes served, more than happy to obey the Hawaiian ideal of 'eat until you are tired' rather than the western ideal of 'eat until you are full'. Nickie discovered he felt tired long before his stomach was uncomfortably full, the deceptively alcoholic cocktails and a day in the sun leaving him feeling genuinely tired rather than filled with the bone-deep weariness that often inflicted him. Peter was the best company he could have asked for, better than any bronzed, half-naked stranger hanging onto his arm. He found he barely acknowledged the single women ranged around them, whose interest in both him and Peter ought to have had them looking at the possibility of getting laid that night but Peter ignored them too, his attention solely on Nickie.

They wandered back to their shared room with happy grins and Nickie dropped to his side of the bed with a carefree sigh. He leaned back, pleasantly drunk and watched as Peter stripped out of his soft white shirt, his back to Nickie, revealing a small Chinese dragon tattooed behind his right shoulder. Without thinking, Nickie leaned across and traced the shape with a finger tip, drawing back in shock when he realized he was touching his friend a little too intimately.

"I-I've...never seen this before," he stuttered, cursing himself for his lack of social graces, but Peter was smiling over his shoulder at Nickie, taking away any worry at having overstepped the boundaries of their friendship.

That night, as they lay side by side listening to the ocean waves lulling them softly to sleep, Nickie heard Peter whisper in the darkness.

"I hate the beard, Nickie. It hides your face."

"Okay," he replied in a whisper.

****

"You staying in there all day?" Peter called, thumping once on the bathroom door and stepping back gracefully when it opened to reveal Nickie standing before him, clean-shaved.

Without the stupid beard, Nickie looked far younger, and his blue eyes looked huge in his naked face, accentuating the innocence and vulnerability that had attracted Peter from the very first time they met. Nickie's tentative smile begged for reassurance and Peter was more then happy to oblige.

"Definitely better without the beard... despite the banding."

"Banding?"

Peter reached out and stroked Nickie's face. "You're sunburned here..." His fingers drifted to cheek and jaw line, "And pale here."

The softness of the freshly shaved face made Peter ache deep inside, desperate to touch more of Nickie's naked flesh as his eyes flashed down to the shirtless torso and the smattering of soft brown curls. When Nickie leaned into the hand cupping his cheek, sinfully long pale eyelashes closing over those brilliant blue eyes, Peter could no longer resist the draw of warm flesh, pressing close and touching his lips to Nickie's. He felt a shiver race through Nickie, a tremble of his lips before they parted, inviting Peter to claim him in a deeper kiss.

Someone moaned in pleasure, the sound reverberating through them as Nickie's hands reached out to hold onto him, fingers digging into his hair and biting into his arm as Peter drew Nickie closer, pushing one knee between his firm thighs and capturing the gasp of pleasure as his leg brushed against Nickie's groin. He pulled away from the now swollen lips, pressing kisses along the smooth jaw and throat, sucking the soft flesh to raise a welt of possession before pulling back until they could look each other in the face.

"Do you want this?" His voice was shaking a little, terrified that Nickie would come to his senses and say no but equally scared that Nickie would say yes and change the nature of their friendship forever.

"Yes... I..." Nickie swallowed hard. "Yes," he whispered, cheeks flushing with renewed color, and an overpowering sense of relief flooded through Peter as he realized they both truly wanted this change; they wanted their friendship to grow into something deeper and even more meaningful.

Peter leaned in for another kiss, loving the way Nickie melted against him as he sank into the kiss. Tongues collided lazily as they moved as one towards the large bed, slowly discarding clothing as they went until they were lying face-to-face, sharing pleasurable kisses and running fingers along warm, naked skin as they thrust against each other. The early morning breeze caressed their heated flesh as they rocked to a slow and perfect climax, swallowing each other's soft cries of completion.

****

The remaining days and nights passed in a haze of pleasure. They spent their days playing, swimming and sunbathing, and their nights in a hot, sweaty tangle of limbs, sharing kisses and caresses. Now they were seated next to each other on the airplane as it taxied along the runway, getting ready to take off and leave paradise behind. Peter was staring out of the window and Nickie ached to reach for him, scared that every mile closer to home would force them further apart as the real world encroached upon their lives once more.

As if sensing Nickie's scrutiny, Peter turned to face him, his mouth a tight line and his eyes haunted. He stared hard for a moment longer and Nickie could sense an internal battle being fought inside Peter's head. Then Peter's eyes widened before he blinked rapidly and relaxed, a smile widening his lips.

"Paradise is a person not a place."

Nickie frowned. "Something your father said?"

"No. Something I just figured out all by myself," he stated softly before reaching out to caress Nickie's face and draw him into the sweetest kiss.

By the time the kiss ended, Nickie's heart was soaring higher than any airplane.

END


End file.
